BECOMING HUMAN

The author sent me a copy of her novel to review:

I was surprised with the author’s storytelling ability and a little discontented with the prose (but to be fair...I just reviewed Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, one of the greatest descriptive writers of all time). The terraforming of a planet reminded me a little of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars (the process of making a planet habitable for humans). Is it possible to go 30 light years away and terraform a exoplanet (a planet that orbits a different star)? Well, it’s the year 2163, and Eliza Green assures me that she had a tech expert advising her on certain issues. You know what? I like reading a sci-fi novel without all that tech jargon unlike some authors who seemingly write to overwhelm your gray matter (do you hear me Vernor Vinge?). I also questioned instant communication between planets, but the principle of simultaneity has apparently been broached in Ursula K. Le Guin’s  classic sci-fi novel, The Dispossessed (1974). If the rest of Eliza Green’s trilogy is as original as this novel, it could challenge Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama four book series, only because the last three Rama books were mostly written by Gentry Lee and didn’t receive the same acclaim. How is that for pressure, Eliza?

What about the story? Well, it seems Earth is polluted (no sunlight gets through), it's way overpopulated with most animals, and plant life dead. Tasteless food is available via replication machines. The air is so bad that humans wear Gel Masks. The only positive, of sort, is that, with the new medical procedures, it’s not unusual to live well into your hundreds. Earth is ruled by The World Government (WG), headed by Charles Deighton, and protection (really?) is provided by Earth Security Centre (ESC), headed by Daphne Gilchrist. About fifty years ago, the WG found a exoplanet (Exilon 5) that could eventually replace Earth if we make some changes on its surface. So the humans terraformed the planet. Did we know that another race was living on the planet? That other race was the Indigenes. Most died during the terraforming bombings, while the rest moved underground. After 25 years, earthlings started inhabiting Exilon 5. The Indigenes were scarcely seen during the day because their skin couldn’t tolerate the sun’s rays, only surfacing at night to hunt in the outskirts of the six human cities. The Indigenes were very strong, could run five to six times faster than humans, and had superior eyesight at night. By the way, can trains on Earth really go 800 MPH? And unless I missed it, I never really found out what a ‘light box’ was. 

On Exilon 5, we meet Bill Taggart, who works for ESC, and is trying to capture a Indigene to bring back to Earth to study (at least that’s what he thinks). He hates the Indigenes because he thinks they killed his wife Isla. He has zeroed in on a Indigene named Stephen, who is trying to find out more about the humans by quizzing a eight year old boy named Ben on a park bench during the daylight. Wait, I thought you said they couldn’t take the sunlight? Yes, but Stephen’s inventor type friend Anton, developed a silicone skin to put over their own skin, although the protection is limited. Taggart’s supporting cast (the military) move in too fast and Stephen gets away. Taggart is summoned to Earth for a explanation. The two Indigenes, Stephen and Anton, follow Taggart to the ship and sneak (kind of) aboard. Can this ship really travel 30 light years in two weeks? I’m sorry that I’m questioning these things, because I really don’t want to hear the technical facts. As the trio heads to Earth, the novel takes a turn and the true plot emerges. And it isn’t pretty. Is it possible that the WG and the ESC have a different motive for bringing the Indigene to Earth? Has the first hundred pages been a big prevarication from the government? The next 250 pages are filled with many new important characters and big time twist and turns. I must say that this novel truly gets more astonishing as the story unfolds.

This story was so well developed that I can’t imagine how Eliza Green can sustain this rigmarole into two additional novels. Amazing, good luck. This sci-fi novel was a pleasant surprise, and I hope that I wet your whistle enough to buy your own copy.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Forbiddenplanet.com has listed the 50 SF Books You MUST Read. Is your favorite on their list? The following are some of the novels they ranked along with their comments:

Coming in @ number 50 is Embassytown by China Mieville, “Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie. Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities. But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown. And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes. Catastrophe looms. Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts. And that is impossible.” See my review of 3/4/2012.

Coming in @ number 48 is The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, “Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's calorie representative in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, he combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs long thought to be extinct. There he meets the windup girl - the beautiful and enigmatic Emiko - now abandoned to the slums. She is one of the New People, bred to suit the whims of the rich. Engineered as slaves, soldiers and toys, they are the new underclass in a chilling near future where oil has run out, calorie companies dominate nations and bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. And as Lake becomes increasingly obsessed with Emiko, conspiracies breed in the heat and political tensions threaten to spiral out of control. Businessmen and ministry officials, wealthy foreigners and landless refugees all have their own agendas. But no one anticipates the devastating influence of the Windup Girl.” See my review of 1/30/2011.

Coming in @ number 29 is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, “The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books. The classic novel of a post-literate future, 'Fahrenheit 451' stands alongside Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World' as a prophetic account of Western civilisation's enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity. Bradbury's powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which over fifty years from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.”

Coming in @ number 11 is Ringworld  by Larry Niven, “Pierson's puppeteers, strange, three-legged, two-headed aliens, have discovered an immense structure in a hitherto unexplored part of the universe. Frightened of meeting the builders of such a structure, the puppeteers set about assembling a team consisting of two humans, a puppeteer and a kzin, an alien not unlike an eight-foot-tall, red-furred cat, to explore it. The artefact is a vast circular ribbon of matter, some 180 million miles across, with a sun at its centre - the Ringworld. But the expedition goes disastrously wrong when the ship crashlands and its motley crew faces a trek across thousands of miles of the Ringworld's surface.” See my review of 2/24/2013.

Coming in @ number 4 is Neuromancer by William Gibson, “The Matrix unfolds like neon origami beneath clusters and constellations of data. Constructs, AIs, live here. Somewhere, concealed by ice, Neuromancer is evolving. As entropy goes into reverse, Molly's surgical implants broadcast trouble from the ferro-concrete geodesic of the Sprawl. Maelcum, Rastafarian in space, is her best hope of rescue. But she and Case, computer cowboy, are busy stealing data from the almighty Megacorps. If the Megacorps don't get them both, perhaps Case will fall prey to the cheap treachery of Linda Lee, someone as lost as himself.”

AND Coming in @ number 1 is Dune by Frank Herbert, “The sweeping tale of the desert planet Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, necessary for interstellar travel and also grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence. The struggle of Paul Atreides, usurped Duke, to regain his seat has severe repercussions. Paul might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a superhuman--he might be a Messiah. Whatever happens, it will be felt throughout the Imperium.”

From the movie, Dune (I love this part):